Melody Pond is a Superhero
by Mint Pearl Voice
Summary: The daughter of two famous Supers, Melody Pond lacked powers... or so everyone thought. AU, smidgens of River/Eleven and River/Ten.
1. Chapter 1

Her parents were famous. Rory the Healer, able to close up the most grevious wounds with a touch, the caduceus symbol emblazoned on his tunic; Captain Amelia, switching between sword and cutlass with uncanny ease, disarming her opponents in the space between seconds, her signature red hair and Scottish burr making villains swear under their breath as soon as they'd recognized exactly who they just ticked off.  
>Their daughter, Melody Pond, had no superpowers to speak of. She was sweet, bright, a trooper, loved dinosaurs and spaceships... and lacked even the tiniest bit of flight or superstrength.<p>

Amy and Rory loved her just the same.

Then five-year-old Melody was kidnapped from her home by the League of Silence and dumped unceremoniously in Times Square. She froze to death in an alleyway at three o' clock the next morning.  
>Amy didn't cry when she got the news. She couldn't cry; if she did, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to stop. For several weeks, blood continually spattered her hands as she skewered every Silence she could find, while a frantic Rory followed behind her, trying to keep both of them alive.<br>And then, after they'd watched the organization's leader die, when they'd settled down with an album of Melody's baby pictures and twenty-five boxes of tissues, someone knocked on the door.  
>"Hello, Mom." The woman on their doorstep looked exactly like Melody would have appeared as an adult, crazy blonde curls and bewitching, cat-green eyes. "It's me, Melody Pond."<p>

After a lot of shouting and near-hysterical laughter on Amy and Rory's part, and equal amounts of shouting on the part of the girl who called herself Melody, an understandable version of the truth emerged.  
>Melody Pond- who'd changed her name to River Song to ensure anonymity at university- hadn't died in New York. Instead, she'd been rescued by a time-traveler ("Ten, he told me to call him,") and transported to the 51st century to grow up safely at an expensive boarding school. "And then, on my twenty-third birthday- yesterday, by the way, happy birthday to me, you owe me a margarita- I woke up here. In the past."<br>So River Song, now almost the same age as her confused yet delighted parents, moved back into her old bedroom. She painted the walls black, tacked up maps of archaeological digs, (archaeology was her major, her passion, her life) and, on one particularly dreary Sunday afternoon, shot her initials into the ceiling with her laser pistol.  
>After that, things really got interesting.<p>

She stopped a bank robbery. Well, not "actively stopped" so much as "happened to be in the bank at the time and was going to withdraw money to go shoe shopping, come hell or high water." Seeing the would-be robber quake when confronted with the business end of her laser pistol, River realized that she actually liked superhero work.  
>She recovered some stolen Middle Eastern artifacts, including an incredible sarcophagus that bridged the gap between the late Egyptian period and the early Roman, which was when they started drawing accurate portraits of the deceased on the outsides of coffins. It felt like the crowning achievement of her life.<br>And then Mels, one of her informers- a bomber-jacketed, street-savy runaway full of fashion-forward makeup techniques and elaborate conspiracy theories regarding time travelers- told her about a heist planned by the group calling itself Vashta Nerada. The Nabonidus Cylinder, a stone text from 500 BC or thereabouts (500 BC! River's heart fluttered just imagining it.) would be on display at the world's largest library. And the Vashta Nerada planned to steal it.


	2. Chapter 2

She signs "Mrs. Robinson" on the guest register and leans casually against the Cylinder's case. No sign of the Vashta Nerada-

And then the lights go out.

Shitshitshitshitshit.

The Vashta Nerada can strangle you with your own shadow. Light slows them down, but it doesn't stop them. Step into the darkness and you're dead.

And now they have a whole library full of shadows to play with.

Where's that sonic screwdriver Ten gave her when he dropped her off at Luna University? River fumbles for it, clicks it on. It provides a bit of light, at least. Drawing her pistol, she fires again and again, hitting what she can barely see with uncanny accuracy. And then a bullet, wreathed in shadows like a negative flame, speeds straight towards her-

but suddenly it reverses course, turning back to the machine that fired it, making a Vashta Nerada's gun explode.

A light kiss on her bare shoulder. "Good afternoon, Professor River Song."

"I'm not a professor," she answers, firing at a Vashta Nerada who's gotten a bit too close. At the edges of her hearing, innocent library patrons scream and run.

"Yet." Another sonic screwdriver clicks on, providing enough light to examine the new arrival. He wears a shabby suit and a neatly knotted, red bow tie. Part of her- well, most of her, actually- longs to run her fingers through his soft-looking hair.

"How do I know I can trust you?" she says loudly over the noise of explosions. Several more bullets reverse their path. He's a time-bender, she thinks: someone who can locally manipulate the flow of time.

"Well... you don't," he answers, a bit sheepishly. "Would it help if I told you that Ten told me to tell you-"

On instinct, they switch places, taking out each other's assailants with unexpected techniques.

"-that one day I'll be someone you trust completely?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"Fantastic! Let's get to work, Professor River Melody Song Pond. You can call me the Doctor, by the way!"

The Doctor- odd choice for a supername, but River wasn't one to comment- was the perfect person to have watching her back. He seemed to anticipate all of her moves and react accordingly. Within an hour, the library was back to normal.

"River," the Doctor said, adjusting his bow tie, "would you like to join Team TARDIS?"

River couldn't breathe. It was as if Indiana Jones had invited her to work with him. Team TARDIS was the best, and everyone in it had powers relating to time in some way. Bad Wolf, goddess of the vortex, her eyes pulsing with golden light as she rearranged the atoms of her enemies. Martha Jones, timestopper, who could predict the future condition of your every cell. The Bride, an information specialist with the power to alter timelines.

And now her.

"But I don't-"

"Yes, you do. How else do you think you were able to recover that entire fresco from that valley in Israel before the rains hit? You didn't have enough time, and you knew it. So you turned back time."

"I'll need to-"

He poked her nose. "-ask your parents. All right. Two days, River. Then I'll come back." The Doctor clicked his fingers, and a blue door opened in the air in front of him: the portal to Team TARDIS's extradimensional headquarters. "Give it some time. This isn't a decision to make lightly, after all." Just before he vanished, she could have sworn that he winked at her.

Two days later, River Song said yes.


End file.
